OUR HUMBLE HELPERS
FAMILIAR TALKS ON
THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS
BY
JEAN-HENRI FABRE
Author of “The Story Book of Science,”
“Social Life in the Insect World,” etc.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
FLORENCE CONSTABLE BICKNELL
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1918
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
In its purpose and style this book closely resembles the same author’s
“Story-Book of Science,” and it belongs to the same series. To many
readers, however, it is likely to prove even more interesting than its
predecessor, inasmuch as the domestic animals are more familiar and
hence more interesting to many persons than the ant, the spider, the
plant-louse, the caterpillar, and other examples of insect life
discussed in the earlier work. Particularly at this time, when not a
few of us, both old and young, are turning our attention, however
inexpertly, to farming in a small way, in order to make the most of
nature’s food resources within our reach, we like to become a little
better acquainted with the denizens of the farmyard and the four-footed
helpers in the field. The pig and the hen, the goose and the turkey,
the ox and the ass, the horse and the cow, the sheep and its canine
keeper—these and many other old friends of ours in the animal kingdom
are made to enliven the following pages by the genius and skill of him
who knew and loved them all as few naturalists have known and loved
their dumb fellow-creatures.
Faithfulness to the spirit of the French original has throughout been
striven for rather than a blind subservience to the letter. May the
attempt to render at least a little of the charm of that original be
found not wholly unsuccessful!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Cock and the Hen 3
II The Gizzard 9
III The Chief Kinds of Poultry 16
IV The Egg 21
V The Egg (Continued) 27
VI Incubation 36
VII The Young Chickens 47
VIII The Poulard 54
IX The Turkey 61
X The Guinea-Fowl 73
XI The Palmipedes 84
XII The Duck 94
XIII The Wild Goose 108
XIV The Domestic Goose 120
XV The Pigeon 130
XVI A Story from Audubon 141
XVII A Supposition 150
XVIII A Fragment of History 159
XIX The Jackal 173
XX The Chief Breeds of Dogs 183
XXI The Chief Breeds of Dogs (Continued) 193
XXII The Various Uses of Dogs 204
XXIII The Eskimo Dog 213
XXIV The Dog of Montargis 221
XXV Hydrophobia 227
XXVI The Cat 239
XXVII Sheep 255
XXVIII The Goat 271
XXIX The Ox 279
XXX Milk 293
XXXI Butter 298
XXXII Rennet 303
XXXIII Cheese 308
XXXIV The Pig 316
XXXV Pig’s Measles 329
XXXVI A Persistent Parasite 334
XXXVII The Horse 343
XXXVIII The Horse (Continued) 354
XXXIX The Ass 362
OUR HUMBLE HELPERS
CHAPTER I
THE COCK AND THE HEN
Under the big elm tree in the garden Uncle Paul has called together for
the third time his usual listeners, Emile, Jules, and Louis. After the
story of the Ravagers, which destroy our harvests, and that of the
Auxiliaries, which protect them, he now proposes to tell the story of
our Humble Helpers, the domestic animals. He thus begins:
“The cock and the hen, those invaluable members of our poultry-yards,
came to us from Asia so long ago that the remembrance of their coming
is lost. At the present day they have spread to all parts of the world.
“Is it necessary to describe the cock to you? Who has not admired this
fine bird, with its bright look, its proud bearing, its slow and sedate
walk? On its head a piece of scarlet flesh forms a scalloped crest;
under the base of the beak hang two wattles resembling pieces of coral;
on each temple, by the side of the ear, is a spot of dull white naked
skin; a rich tippet of golden red falls from the neck over the
shoulders and breast; two feathers of a greenish metallic luster form a
graceful arch of plumage in the upper part of the tail. The heel is
armed with a horny spur, hard and pointed; a formidable weapon with
which, in fighting, the cock stabs his rival to death. His song is a
resonant peal that makes itself heard at all hours, night as well as
day. Hardly does the sky begin to brighten with the twilight of dawn
when, erect on his perch, he awakens the nocturnal echoes with his
piercing cock-a-doodle-doo, the reveille of the farm.”
“That,” said Emile, “is the song I like so much to hear in the morning
when I am about half-way between sleeping and waking.”
“It is the cock’s crowing,” put in Louis, “that wakes me up in the
morning when I have to go to market in the next town.”
“The cock is the king of the poultry-yard,” resumed Uncle Paul. “Full
of care for his hens, he leads them, protects them, scolds and punishes
them. He watches over those that wander off, goes in quest of the
vagrants, and brings them back with little cries of impatience, which,
no doubt, are admonitions. If necessary, a peck with the beak persuades
the more refractory. But if he finds food, such as grain, insects, or
worms, he straightway lifts up his voice and calls the hens to the
banquet. He himself, however, magnificent and generous, stands in the
midst of the throng and scratches the earth to turn up the worms and
distribute here and there to the invited guests the dainties thus
unearthed. If some greedy hen takes more than her share, he recalls her
to a sense of her duty to the community and reprimands her with a peck
on the head. After all the others have eaten their fill he contents
himself with their leavings.
“Plainer in costume, the hen, the joy of the farmer’s wife, trots about
the poultry-yard, scratching and pecking and cackling. After laying an
egg she proclaims her joy with an enthusiasm in which her companions
take such a share that the whole establishment bursts into a general
lively chorus in celebration of the happy event. She has a habit of
squatting down in a dusty and sunny corner where she flutters her wings
with much content and makes a fine shower fall between her feathers to
relieve the itching that torments her. Then with outstretched leg and
wing she sleeps away the hottest hours of the day; or, without
disturbing her voluptuous repose, spying a fly on the wall, she snaps
it up with one quick dart of her beak. Like the cock, she swallows fine
gravel, which takes the place of teeth and serves to grind the grain in
her gizzard. She drinks by lifting her head skyward to make each
mouthful go down. She sleeps on one leg, the other drawn up under her
plumage and her head hidden under her wing.”
“These curious particulars of the hen’s habits,” said Jules, “are quite
familiar to us all; we see them every day with our own eyes. One only
is new to me: hens, you say, swallow little grains of sand which take
the place of teeth for grinding the food in the gizzard. I don’t know
what the gizzard is, and I don’t see how little stones that have been
swallowed can be used as teeth.”
“A short digression on the digestive organs of birds,” replied Uncle
Paul, “will give you the information you ask for.
“Birds do not chew their food; they swallow it just as they seize it,
or nearly so. The beak, lacking teeth, is for that very reason unsuited
for the work of grinding. It merely seizes; it strikes, picks up, digs,
pierces, breaks, tears, according to the kind of food adapted to the
bird’s needs. A solid horn covers the bony framework of the two
mandibles and makes their edges sharp and very well fitted for
dismembering if necessary, but not for triturating.
“Rapacious birds that feed on live prey have the upper mandible short,
strong, hooked, and terminating in a sharp point, sometimes with
serrate edges. With this weapon the hunting bird kills its prey, and
tears it to pieces while holding it with its vigorous talons armed with
sharp, curved nails.
“Fish-eating birds that tear the fish to pieces in order to swallow it
have the hooked beak of the rapacious birds; those that swallow the
fish whole have a straight beak with long, wide mandibles. Some throw
it into the air to catch it in their beak a second time, head first,
and swallow it without any difficulty in spite of the fin-bones, which
lie flat from front to back while the fish is passing through the
narrow gullet. A great fishing bird, the pelican, has in its lower
mandible a large membranous pouch, a sort of fish-pond, where it stores
the fish as long as the catch lasts. Thus stocked up, it seeks a quiet
retreat on some ledge of rock by the water-side and takes out, one by
one, the fish packed away in its pouch, to feed on them at leisure.”
“The pelican seems to me a wise fisher,” remarked Emile. “Without
losing a minute in swallowing, it begins by filling the bag under its
beak. The time will come later for looking over the catch and enjoying
the fish at leisure. I should like to see it on its rocks with its bag
full.”
“And that other one,” said Jules, “that throws the fish it has caught
into the air so as to catch it again head first and not strangle when
swallowing it—is not that one just as clever?”
“Each kind has its special talent,” replied Uncle Paul, “which it uses
with the tool peculiar to the bird, the beak. If the story of the
auxiliaries, related some time ago, is still fresh in your minds, you
will remember that insect-eating birds have the beak slender and
sometimes very long, to dig into the fissures of dead wood and bark;
but those that catch insects on the fly, as the swallow and the
fern-owl, have the beak very short and exceedingly wide, so that the
game pursued is caught in the open gullet and becomes coated with a
slimy saliva which holds it fast. Finally, I will remind you of the
granivorous birds—the sparrow, linnet, greenfinch, chaffinch, and many
others. All these birds, whose chief food consists of grain, have the
beak short, thick, pointed; adapted, in fact, to the picking up of
seeds from the ground, freeing them from their husks, and breaking
their shells to obtain the kernel. By virtue of its strong mandibles,
the beak of the hen belongs to this last category, although at the same
time its rather long, sharp, and slightly hooked extremity indicates
carnivorous tastes. Such a beak calls not only for seeds, but also for
small prey, such as insects and worms.”